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A few thoughts on a sunday afternoon.

  1. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming 50 in 50 project that we’ve been working on. It’s easy to get caught up in optional rules, RMU reviews and game mechanics at the expense of writing or discussing actual gaming content!  Personally, coming up with 25 short adventures or encounters that had an interesting hook was a challenging creative exercise. Peter and I had all of the outlines done in 2 months and are now working on the final edits. I’ve blogged about it before, but RM would be better served if there were more ready to play adventures being published. In related news, I think our next challenge: 5 adventures for 50th level has turned out to be a great exercise!
  2. Speaking of alternate rules…I think fumble ranges need to be INCREASED–dramatically. It’s one thing to pick up a weapon, spin it about and perform some flourishes; it’s another to use any object in combat or fast moving, dynamic situations. We already use # of skill ranks to offset combat maneuvers and RM rules has an optional rule that fumble range can be reduced. For instance, I’m thinking a fumble range of 25 for a flail, with a minimum of 5, reduced by # of skill ranks.
  3. RM Deconstruction. I’ve been wondering if I need to take another look at the actual stats. Do we need 10? I think Self Discipline, Presence, Intuition, Empathy need further thought. On one hand, I can see what they model. Can Self Discipline and Presence be combined into a “Will” stat? Can Intuition and Empathy be merged?

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

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But I am no mermaid

This post follows on from A River Runs Through It. We left the characters in the water in a fast flowing river, going over rapids and generally up the creek without a paddle.

I was once told the general anatomy of a story is ‘Put the hero up a tree, throw stones at him and then get him down again.’ Now it is time to throw some stones metaphorically speaking at the characters.

It is entirely possible that one or more of the characters may have drowned by this point. If you had one character go overboard early on during the river run they could have gone under and drowned long before the last character goes overboard. For now, we will let them believe they have drowned. Think of them as being unconscious rather than dead as that may have implications regarding automatic spells.

So everyone is by now in the water. Some have drowned others are keeping their head above water. We are not just going to wait for them to drown. Those that are still with us will feel something brush their legs under water. They can maybe see some massive sort of fish maybe six to eigth feet long and silver green moving deep below them. More seem to a circling and coming closer.

Let the characters worry for a couple of rounds and then have the first one feel a hand grab an ankle and drag them down. I would have a knot of the forms grab the characters attention in front while the first attack comes from below and behind!

As the character goes under they will get the first real look at what has them and it looks like merfolk! These though are bigger than your usual half man half fish types. That does depend rather on whether your characters have ever met any merfolk before.

What we have here are freshwater merfolk. These are bigger and more deadly cousins of the more common saltwater variety.

Any characters that have previously been ‘drowned’ have actually been rescued by a naiad. This water spirit has cast waterlungs on them once they were unconscious and towed them to a safe underwater cave. The naiad wants the merfolk gone from her river and the characters landing in her lap are the opportunity she has been waiting for. Once the merfold attack she will revive any unconscious ‘drowned’ people and quickly convey to them not to ask questions but go save their friends. The characters should then see the scene of the surviving characters being attacked and circled by the merfolk.

Freshwater Merfolk.

Freshwater Merfolk – Found in treacherous waterways such as rapids and below waterfalls; 6’6″–8’6″ from head to fin.
Crippling Flaw (Must totally immerse once a day in water, –10 to all activities for each missed day (at –80 a coma ensues, at –100 death occurs).

Innate Spell Caster, has the following mentalism lists to their own level. Speed (closed mentalism), Self Healing (open mentalism), Attack Avoidance (open mentalism). They gain 3PP/level.
The fair skin of a merman’s torso blends at the waist into the silver and green shimmering scales of their fish’s tail. Freshwater Merfold are very uncomfortable above water but can breath air if they must.  They are fond of sunlight and like to bask in shallow streams.

Unlike their sea born cousins they do not build manors and palaces. They are much more ‘barbaric’ by comparison. Freshwater merfold wear strings of animal skulls, bones, precious stones, or gems as raiment. Average lifespan is 30 years.

Level 6C
Base Mv 90
Max Pace Dash/+25
Speed MF/MD
Size/Crit M/-
Hits 80D
AT(DB) 1(35s)
Attacks 95 Melee/60 MCl 30
Enc 1-10
Bonus EP E
Outlook IQ Aggressive

For weapons they prefer daggers, knives, short swords and short spears. Things that do not compromise their manoeuvrability in the water or weigh them down.

Next time we will put the characters in even more trouble.

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Deconstruction of Character Creation and Game Modeling of Skill Systems in RM.

 

Peter’s recent blog, RMU – to infinity and beyond, created a firestorm of comment activity. 64 comments to date! Much of the back and forth touched up on professions, attributes, knacks and character creation. Certainly, the thrust of the debate was centered around the Professions vs No Professions commentary that Peter and I have continued on the RolemasterBlog and previously on the Rm Forums.

Rather than add more comments to Peters blog post, I thought I would take this topical opportunity to discuss the base modeling of the RM skill system (and other game systems too). As I did with BASiL, my own rewrite of Character Law (I named it SWARM) started with a complete deconstruction of the RM rule set. It’s an ongoing process and even now I’m tinkering and rethinking things based on comments here by Peter, Hurin and ITD. I’m going to discuss my own solutions, but the point here is to examine the underlying principles of the skill system, not argue for my own resolutions.

There are 5 basic rule mechanisms that are used in the RM skill system: Stats, Development Points, Skill Costs, Skill Rank Bonus and Profession Skill Bonus.

  1. A standard RPG/game trope, Stats quantify a PC’s various physical and mental traits—the basis of the character make-up. In RM stats are then used to determine “Stat Bonuses” which are added to the appropriate skills. While there is disagreement about the need for actual stats, everyone agrees with and understands the nature of stat bonuses—it is a measure of a characters “Natural Aptitudes and Abilities”.
  2. Development Points. DP’s are “coinage”—used to purchase skills by rank. In RM, DP’s are variable and based on a select group of Stats, while in RMU characters are given a fixed amount. Either way, Development Points are modelling the “Capacity to Learn”.
  3. Skill Costs. In both RM and RMU skill costs are driven by a PC’s profession. Some argue that Professional Skill Costs are a product of formative learning channels, aptitudes or learning paths. This is an argument for WHY there are Profession Skill Costs—but this is not an argument on what Skill Costs ARE. Skill Costs are a measurement of “Profession Aptitudes” & “Time & Effort” to learn a skill.
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. The Skill Rank Bonus progression basically remains unchanged from RM to RMU; for each rank, there is a subsequent, cumulative bonus that is added to your total. Skill Rank Bonus models a “Learning Curve”.
  5. Profession Skill Bonus. Finally, each Profession is given pre-assigned Skill Bonuses based on the characters Profession. In RM it was a level bonus and in RMU it’s a per rank bonus. The is modeling “Profession Aptitudes”.

The first and foremost problem I see here is that Profession Skill Costs is modelling two separate distinct factors: professional aptitudes AND time and effort. The second is that Profession Skill Bonuses are then duplicative; they are both modelling Profession Aptitudes. Personally, I think that’s sloppy game mechanics—it would simpler to just adjust Profession Skill Costs and eliminate the Profession Skill Bonus. Reducing the cost of a skill is the same as giving a profession skill rank bonus.

Ultimately, the simplest measure to test is: Total Skill Bonus/DP’s spent. Adding layers of complexity to model the same effect (Profession Aptitudes) is pointless.

I think it’s a cleaner solution to make each mechanism discrete unto itself, rather than have several game devices that only serve to reinforce professional tropes. Here would by my suggestion for RMU using Professions:

  1. Stats – Natural Aptitudes.
  2. Development Points. Either stat variable or fixed. (I can see both arguments)
  3. Skill Costs. Time & Effort only. The same skill costs for all professions—this is modelling how hard it is to learn a particular skill or lore. Skill costs can vary by skill but NOT by profession.
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. Learning Curve.
  5. Profession Skill Bonus. Profession Aptitudes.

This solution provides distinct functions of each rule component—no duplication. Plus, Profession Skill Bonuses allow for easier to understand Profession distinctions and an easier process for creating new Professions. You no longer have to assign skill costs by Professions— and you can be more aggressive on the total Bonuses per Profession. Giving a Fighter +4 bonus/rank for 1 Hand Edge is a real differentiator and results in the same outcome as giving them a low skill cost. Plus, this solution eliminates huge charts of professional based skill costs as well.

If, like me, you are using NO PROFESSION you might want to try my solution which is slightly different.

  1. Stats – Natural Aptitudes.
  2. Development Points. Either stat variable or fixed. (I can see both arguments)
  3. Skill Costs. Time & Effort only. Skills all cost 5* with +1 cost per extra rank per level with unlimited advancement. (the +1 resets each level—this measures the law of diminishing returns).
  4. Skill Rank Bonus. Bell Curve. I use a 1,2,3…9,8,7,6….1,1,1 progression. This keeps low level characters from maxing out the cost/bonus curve of important skills.
  5. Variable Skill Bonus. Rather than Skill Bonuses assigned by Profession I give players +6 in bonuses to assign as they see fit. This option models “talents” or “knacks” and gives players more flexibility and customization of their characters outside the profession paradigm.

In the final argument, having Profession Skill Costs and Profession Skill Bonuses is redundant and unnecessary.

For summary:

Mechanism/System RM RMU Suggested Solution (when using Professions)
Stats Natural Aptitudes & Abilities. Natural Aptitudes & Abilities. Natural Aptitudes & Abilities.
Development Points Variable Learning Capacity Fixed Capacity to learn Optional – Variable or Fixed
Skill Costs Professional Aptitude & Time and Effort Professional Aptitude & Time and Effort Time and Effort (same costs for all Professions)
Skill Rank Bonus Learning Curve – Decreasing Learning Curve – Decreasing Learning Curve – Decreasing
Skill Bonus Professional Aptitude Professional Aptitude Professional Aptitudes – Enchanced
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A River Runs Through It

I want you to bear with me with this post. It is a first of a mini series that should be greater than the sum of its parts.

I hope I am not the only person who does this or it will sound really naff but I have often used river journeys for the players to hand wave large sections of cross country travel through relatively safe territory. As a player we did this in Shadow World and as a GM I let my players load their horses and kit on to a barge and it took days off an otherwise uneventful journey.

Now imagine that you give you players an option of taking a boat down stream, a two day journey, or walking which takes about 10 days as the terrain is quite difficult. Where they are is a small settlement and the river rafts are the main form of employment. The costs of downstream travel are cheap as the raftsmen earn their money poling heavy cargo up stream.

So that is the setting and motivation to get your players on the raft. You then carry on with some description of the start of the journey, silently drifting along with the current, the wildlife that use the river to come down to drink, otters swimming alongside, majestic birds seeming to defy the current and hold their position on the water as the raft floats by. The banks rising as the river enters a channel showing the bands of rock strata and how the raftsman deftly steers the craft with just a single oar and the lightest of touches to drift the raft into the smoothest water.

The channel starts to narrow and the flow of the river starts to increase. The raftsman tells any character interested how the edges of the river are dangerously turbulent and filled with submerged rocks that can cut a man to pieces. He says how beautiful the river is here but just wait as it is like a demon up ahead.

He then tells the characters that the only real danger are from the… At that point a spear takes him in the chest and he is whipped over the side and into the water complete with the only oar!

On the bank a small band of orcs or goblins jump up from behind some bushes and wave weapons threateningly. They start to follow down the bank as best they can.

So now the characters are in a drifting raft without a paddle.

We can generate the river randomly as it continues down the channel. Just roll an couple of D100 OE, once for the left and the other for the right. Round the numbers off unless any of the characters are exceptionally good at estimation. Now take the rounded figure and subtract it from 100. So a a roll of 75 would also give a result of 25. This is the difficulty factor for any rowing or swimming rolls on that side of the raft. So if you rolled a 34 and 82 the raft is about 30 feet from the left bank and 80 feet from the other but any skill checks to go left are at -70 because of the turbulence and submerged rocks and rolls to go right are at -20 as the water is calmer on that side.

So now we have a river that is full of eddies and whirlpools near the banks but is calmer in the middle unless you make two low rolls in which case you basically have rapids.

When you get a failed rowing rolls you can check to see if anyone falls overboard! This can bring in various skills from adrenal moves balance to acrobatics. I would use the characters whole Agility stat and apply a difficult factor depending on the failure of the rowing or piloting skill roll.

I am not a fan of rolling these sorts of rolls on the fly as it can lead the players to realise everything is random. I tend to use random number tables so I am just looking up and crossing off a result rather than randomly rolling. It also looks like I am checking off points in the plot.

Eventually, one or more characters are going to end up overboard. Using the same difficulty modifiers for swimming you can introduce A unbalancing  or krush criticals which could give you stunned characters in the water.

This gives you a whole new challenge for the player characters, to rescue their comrades.

There are plenty of other things you can do to make this situation worse. The orcs that originally threw the spear could easy continue to track the raft hurling stones at the characters or give them slings, there are plenty of stones around after all.

This is a very physical challenge in which the players need to work together to survive. It is also just part o e of an unfolding mini adventure.

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RMU – to infinity and beyond!

There was a comment to my last post that read:

The challenge I see with RMU as opposed to RM2 is the apparent lack of willingness to look beyond fantasy (and even then it’s their definition of fantasy). RM has always suffered (IMO) from the lack of a solid, accessible setting, and RMU just seems to accelerate that trend. They also took steps (especially in the combat system) to render it almost useless for non-magic settings if you leave it RAW. The flexibility that came with RM2 (and even RMSS in its own way) seems to be disappearing.

In addition in a recent comment Hurin had noted the amount of HARP that seems to have found its way into RMU. There is nothing wrong with HARP but HARP is not Rolemaster and definitely not RM2!

That got me thinking. Last year I bought HARP Fantasy and HARP SF. I bought them because I want to run a SF game soon and as I have said many times before I have lost my Spacemaster books.

So HARP is certainly not locked into a fantasy setting and not into one single fantasy setting. Shadow World is statted out for HARP and HARP has its own core setting of Cyradon. HARP SF plays out in Tintamar but by default it also shares the same setting as Kulthea and Spacemaster because of the Shadow World connection.

One of the things I like about HARP is that the last release was to truly unify the fantasy and sf rules and make them interchangeable. I only needed the fantasy rules as monsters make great aliens.

There is a massive gulf between RM2 and HARP and I agree there is a lot of HARP in RMU. The skill system is the same, character creation is very similar. The move in RMU to less combat tables is almost a single step towards the HARP way of thinking and that I think is the problem with RMU. The only weakness as I see it with HARP, looking from a RM background point of view, is the combat system and the criticals in particular. The same old critical comes around again and again way too often and even in the same fight. The rest of the combat system works really nicely as far as I can tell.

Another interesting thing is that the HARP forums are far busier than the RM forums if you exclude the BETA test forums. If you include them then you also need to include the HARP development forums as well. I see a far greater variety of voices in the HARP debates than in the RM ones these days. There is an active HARP community around the game and new HARP books are eagerly awaited,even if most of them are just re-releases to bring them in line with the unified Fantasy/SF rules.

Whether HARP’s firearms are as good as intothatdarkness’s firearms is a completely different question but the fact remains that HARP does have viable settings and it does have modern day and SF elements that make it go well beyond the fantasy genre.

I think RMU is trying to learn from HARP but is struggling to take the old guard with it to some extent. Which is a pity as we are the old guard.

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Rolemaster Settings Shadow World?

I am in a peculiar situation of putting together a ‘Shadow World special’ for the Rolemaster Fanzine and yet I know almost nothing about Shadow World. I know what I have read in the Players Guide and I know what I learned in the last campaign we played set in SW but I cannot trust what I learned in the game for two reasons. Firstly, the GM could have changed anything. Secondly we were playing The Curse of Kabis and it is my understanding that that particular adventure is non-cannon.

This post is not actually about the fanzine but this issue got me thinking about Rolemaster and its relationship with setting.

To my mind when I look at RM I see MERP. I think the reason is twofold. I first played RM in Middle Earth in a game that lasted for nearly 20 years. First impressions last! The second reason is that the races as laid down in Character Law were obviously written with Middle Earth in mind and they have never changed. It has been decades now since the lost of the ME license but those foundations still lay at the bottom of RM.

If I had to say what was the default system for Rolemaster I would have to say it was Shadow World. It alone really attempts to unify Rolemaster and Spacemaster into a single universe.

(There is a rumbling issue over sizes of combatants in the RMU beta that I think will cause problems, if it isn’t resolved now, when they try and create a SMU. Right now the rules are skewed in favour of smaller combatants taking on larger foes e.g. heroes fighting dragons. In a future SMU tiny robots will be ripping human sized player characters to bits under the same rules.)

Ignoring any possible SMU for now, there are far more RM players than there are SW users. I for one base my games mostly in Forgotten Realms. I would guess that most games are set in a home brew setting.

Some will be set on our own Earth with or without magic. I am running a RMU play test set on our Earth, medieval China, with only a single realm of magic, mentalism, and that is extremely rare.

So here is the issue. If as a complete newbie you pick up RM, you get no setting. To use an existing setting you may have such as Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, assuming a lot of new to RM GMs may have D&D experience, you have a lot of conversion to do and the races, particularly elves are not a neat fit. Not every D&D monster has a RM equivalent either.

To create your own setting and adventures right from day one is a big demand. A new GM can easily wipe out a party just by under estimating the danger of the RM combat system. It is often a case of not what you are fighting but how many you fight at once.

Another issue is that the Rolemaster books do not ‘up sell’ Shadow World. At no point have I been urged and encouraged to buy into the Shadow World setting. I honestly have no idea what I would need to buy as an absolute minimum to start playing in that setting.

When I run my RAW game I am a pure RMC GM. Are the Shadow World books statted up for RMC? Will I have all the right professions? I know Shadow World predates RMC and if I had to make a guess I would say that RM2 is Shadow Worlds natural mate. RMC is close but a hell of a lot smaller than RM2, less professions, less skills, less spell lists.

I think the lack of a tied up setting is a significant weakness. To fix it I would urge the RMU Devs to start to make direct and explicit references to Shadow World in the core rules text. I would set all the extended examples in that setting. Most core systems also include a starting adventure to kick new groups off and I would suggest setting this in Shadow World as well.

As soon as the rules are fixed for RMU I would call on Terry to revise at least one book/continent so that all the NPCs, monsters, magic items, spells are RMU compatible. This would be the same continent that all the books’ examples were set in and the starting adventure took place in.

Just because the core books are SW flavoured will never stop a GM from rolling their own setting, so there is no loss there. If you want to set a game in China or Rome then you could just as easily. GMs do that everyday with just about every system and so they will RMU.

I think the first house rule I ever made was to allow a chain saw in Spacemaster use the Battle Axe table in Arms Law because I was running a weekend game of Doom inspired Rolemaster.

Can you think of any explicit down side to tying RMU to Shadow World?

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Project BASiL: Mentalism Spells & Misc.

Most of my emails and forum messages have been asking about when I’m going to post the Mentalism spells for my Spell Law re-write. While Essence and Channeling were fairly straight forward, I’ve ended up re-working Mentalism several times–and now I’m doing it again! Part of this was a desire to really differentiate the realms: Essence is manipulation of the physical world and elements, Channeling is driven by the God’s aspect, “life forces”, and miraculous effects, and Mentalism are spells of mind and will. But what does that mean? What should Mentalism spells encompass for powers?

While Mentalism was never proffered as being Psionics, it was a good reference point for me to re-organize Mentalism spells, clarify their limits and group spells accordingly. Interestingly, I found that like Essence and Channeling, new spell lists and groupings created new profession possibilities.

Here are my initial power/ability groupings and associated lists/powers (same as Base lists). Most of them are just a single or a couple of lists to create a mental “Discipline”–most Mentalists might focus on 2-3 Disciplines for specialization.

Body Enhancement: Body Control, Self Augmentation, Body Weaponry, Self Healing, Body Resistance

Clairavoyance:  Item Visions, People Visions, Place Visions (yes those names are pretty bad–suggestions?)

Glamours: Phantasms/lllusions, Hallucinations, Visual, Sound, Smell, Touch

Mesmerization: Mind Control, Enthralling, Suggestion

Mind Enhancement: Mind Shields, Mind Lore (Absorption list)

Precognition: Future Visions, Awareness, Dreams

Pyschokinesis: Move Objects, Manipulate Object (heat, bend, reform, break)

Pyrokinesis: Control Fire, Manifest Fire

Sense Projection: Astral Projection, Remote Sensing

Subterfuge: Cloaking, Distractions

Telepathy: Absorb Lore, Read Mind, Sense Minds, Mind Speech, Mind Attacks

Right now I’m around 30-35 “Base Lists”, 10 Closed (which are lesser/consolidated versions of base)  and a handful of Open (limited to 10th lvl). Similar to the other BASiL lists, you can easily move things around: “Telepathy” becomes the Mentalist Base, Pyschokinesis and Subterfuge becomes Mystic Base and Body Enhancement becomes Monk base–the rest drop into Closed and/or Open.

My goal was 50 total lists which I think I’m at, but it needs another pass through. If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, spells, spell lists etc feel free to comment. After all the Companions, Guild lists, and add-ons I have no illusions that anything I’m doing is truly original. For me it was re-organizing, filling in blanks, eliminating redundant and or useless spells etc. Happy to hear any suggestions!

 

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Player Combat Charts

Do you give your players a copy of their combat chart for rolling their own attack?

I know lots of people do this but I am not one of them. I believe the objective is to speed up combat. Everyone has one copy of every chart they use so there is no page flipping back and forth through Arms Law. The GM only then has to manage the NPCs attacks.

I do something similar with Spell Law so everyone has a copy of their spell lists so the spell casters are not queuing up to get their hands on spell law to see what spell to cast.

I think combat tables are different. Here is my thinking.

Now imagine this. The players had discussed their plan. They were going to take out any patrols on the castle wall, dumping the bodies over the wall into the marshy ground beside the moat.

The players attack a knight with surprise, from behind. They make their roll, add their OB and I then have to tell them the knights AT and DB.

The knight has a DB of 90! Yes, that is right a DB not dependent on shields or being aware of the attack. Telling that to the player is certain to raise an eyebrow at least. Do you honestly think that the characters are still going to throw the knight, armour and all over the wall and into the moat?

Or how about the poor knight is wearing cursed armour? It looks like AT17 but protects as AT2. What will the players think then?

I think giving the combat table to the players, for me, is giving away too many spoilers. Those situations do not come up every day or every session but they do come up.

I have ‘cured’ my players from excessive meta gaming. We had a situation where all the players fell into a detailed and somewhat heated discussion about their plans while they were in easy earshot of an informer. There was no possible way for the characters to share the information that the players were sharing without vocalising it so I rolled a perception roll for the informer and he heard it all. Several crimes were part of their plans and one of the bad guys was the local sheriff. Things got hot for the characters pretty quickly and one of the players said that his character would never have said all that out loud in the middle of the market. The obvious answer was to ask well how did you think the characters were having this discussion? Other players were still interacting with people in the market while the discussion was going on. I was still describing the evolving scene as more stalls opened and more towns folk filtered into the market and so on.

From that point on the players all accepted that all their communications are their characters communications unless they have explicitly said they are passing a note or using some kind of magical method.

Bandying around the foes AT and DB to me seems to be too much information to be giving the players. I think it has the potential to change the characters tactical thinking based upon things the character simply cannot know. If there are two enemy in from of you and you don’t have a very good OB, you are going to pick the one with a poor DB, it is simple self preservation surely?